


Ghost of a Chance

by CatWinchester



Category: Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), Tom Hiddleston - Fandom
Genre: Comedy, F/M, Ghosts, Horror, Murder Mystery, annoying adam
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-09-13
Packaged: 2018-07-26 22:25:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7592590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatWinchester/pseuds/CatWinchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Adam returns to one of his properties he’s shocked to find that he has a new ghostly roommate. </p><p>Alex has been trapped in his house for the past 15 years and is desperate to understand who murdered her and how her remains wound up in his home, but Adam isn’t interested in helping her find the answers. </p><p>With both as stubborn as each other, prepare for the supernatural showdown of the century and the gloves are off!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to @evieplease for beta-ing.

** **

**Chapter One**

As Adam unlocked the house and looked around, he was assaulted with memories of the nights spent here, relaxing, talking, sharing stories. 

The house was a detached Georgian property that Adam had owned since it was built, but he hadn’t been here in over 50 years. He couldn’t visit too often in case people realised he wasn’t ageing, but he was safe now, he’d checked that his neighbours were all new before returning. 

Besides, he liked this city. Back when he bought this house, Edinburgh University’s medical school had been the premier scientific institution in Europe and he had spent many long nights discussing the enlightenment movement with some of the best minds in the world. 

That was a long time ago though. 

He’d been so optimistic back then, believing that he could change the world. The three hundred odd years since had cured him of that delusion though and now… now he existed.

His life was so small by comparison. 

He still loved science, and music and art, but he enjoyed them alone now. It was easier that way. 

As he wandered through, he noticed that the place was cleaner than he expected. 

He had an agent who went in once a year to make sure there were no issues and if there were, make the necessary repairs, but Adam hadn’t asked the agency to clean, nor had he told them he was coming. 

He supposed it was possible that cleaning was part of their service, but they usually checked on the property every April, after the winter in case the temperatures had done any damage. It was now October though, so any cleaning would not have lasted. 

They could have been late, he supposed, but why would they remove the dust sheets? And why were his books out of order? 

He began to go room to room, noting everything that was out of place. Some rooms had been almost completely rearranged. 

He wondered if someone was living here, but squatters didn’t generally take good care of properties and there were no possessions here, such as clothing, plus he couldn’t detect the scent of anyone. 

Whatever was going on, it didn’t frighten him, there was nothing and no one that posed a real threat to him. Given what he was, it did perturb him slightly though, he couldn’t afford for anyone to discover that he was a vampire. 

There was no trace of anyone or anything else being in the house though. Perplexed, he headed to his bedroom and unpacked his meagre possessions, mainly because at the bottom of the bag was three flasks of blood. 

He’d flown into London then driven to Edinburgh because he knew of a blood supplier down there. This would last him a week if he was careful, more than enough time to find his own local source. 

Driving all night, for almost 8 hours to be exact, had left him exhausted though, so he drank straight from the flask, removed his coat, then all but fell into bed. He knew the room was north facing so he didn’t even bother to check that the curtains were properly closed. 

***

Alexandra watched as he climbed onto the bed and fell asleep moments later. He hadn’t even bothered to remove his shoes. 

She’d kept quiet and hidden while he toured the house, not wanting to frighten him and hoping he’d go into the basement of his own volition but it wasn’t to be, so she made her way downstairs and slammed the basement door. She listened intently but couldn’t hear anything. She slammed the door again, then a third time, but when she went up to check on him, he hadn’t even stirred. She tried one more time but to no avail.

The poor chap must be exhausted… either that or it was alcohol in his flask and he was passed out. 

Either way, it looked like she’d have to wait another day. She’d waited long enough already, one more day wasn’t going to hurt anyone. 

She returned to the bedroom to make sure he was alright and was not cowering in fear from her antics, but he still slept soundly. 

His shoes bothered her, so reasoning that he must be an exceptionally deep sleeper, she carefully removed them and pulled the covers over him. 

It wasn’t so much that she cared about him, it was more about needing contact with someone, anyone. Even presuming she could, she would never admit this to anyone, but she was lonely. She realised that watching someone sleep was creepy though, especially these days, so she headed for the sitting room and picked up the book she’d been reading before he interrupted her.

***

Adam awoke slowly and it took him a few minutes to realise that his shoes had been removed. When he sat up, he saw that they had been placed beside the chest of drawers. 

Something very strange was going on here and he was determined to find out what. 

He tilted his head as he heard music playing. His music, if he wasn’t mistaken, but it was so soft that even his vampire senses could only just make it out. 

He left the bedroom, the floor boards creaking under his steps, and the music stopped, but he could see a light on downstairs.

He was starting to grow annoyed with these games, so he used his vampire speed to make it downstairs in under a second. The living room, where the  light was coming from, was empty, but the chain from the old lamp by the sofa swung gently and the bulb was dark one more.

It must be another vampire, he reasoned, since only they would have time to escape before he made it down here. 

“Show yourself,” he said, not at all impressed to think he had company. “I know you’re here.” 

The chain continued to swing until Adam stilled it as he listened for any sounds. On the sofa lay a book that last night had been on the side table, a collection of poems by William Wordsworth. 

He began going room to room, determined to find who else was living here, using his enhanced senses and checking insode, behind or under any furniture that might be large enough to conceal even a child. 

All the reception rooms were clear and he knew that his visitor hadn’t passed him on the stairs so the chances were they had gone into the basement. 

He opened the door and went down, turning the light on as he walked down the staircase; he didn’t need it, there were windows down here which was more than enough light, even after dark, but wanted to make sure he didn’t miss anything. 

The place was full of things he should have thrown out but had instead hoarded, but he was glad of it when he saw the love seat. He removed the dust sheet, and this one really did have 50 years of dust on it which filled the air now it had been disturbed. He traced his fingers over the wooden frame, smiling as he remembered so many nights spent here with Eve. 

He was just at the point now where he could remember her without debilitating pain. Now, while his eyes were shining with unshed tears, he had a small smile on his lips. 

He removed other dust sheets and his previous hunt became a trip down memory lane. 

‘Why did you make me promise to live?’ he asked Eve for the millionth time. 

He lifted another dust sheet and noticed three trunks piled up, but the contents of one or more of the trunks seemingly piled up beside them. Suspicious, he approached with caution and undid the straps on the top trunk and lifted the lid. The scent of lavender assaulted his nose, probably placed in there in sachets to protect the ball gowns, which dated from the 1850s if Adam wasn’t much mistaken. 

He closed it up and set it aside for now, opening the middle trunk. 

“Fuck,” he muttered as he saw the decomposed corpse, probably of a young woman since she seemed to be wearing a dress. He closed the lid with a heavy sigh and did the straps back up again, then he replaced the other trunk back on top. 

He would have to dispose of the body somehow, he couldn’t let it stay here, but the ‘how’ was a worry. He walked out of the basement and shut the light off behind him, closing and locking the door. The key was stiff but he managed. 

Since she was mostly just bones, she’d probably been there for 8 to 12 years, he reasoned, so clearly there wasn’t an active investigation, meaning he had a little bit of leeway to dispose of her. 

As well as avoiding detection, he had to be careful that once he moved her, her bones weren’t discovered by someone else, because if they identified her, they might link her to this house somehow. 

His mind began going through other methods of disposing of a corpse, after all, he’d had quite a bit of practice over the years.

Acid was the best, of course, but it was hard to get hold of in sufficient quantities. 

If he could gain access to a boiler hot enough, he could cremate her. There weren’t many boilers that ran at 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit or 600 degrees Celsius though. 

He could also place her in a new grave. Usually he put bodies under a coffin already buried, then he reburied it, but these bones would fit inside the casket. Graves were hardly ever disturbed, especially not if they were modern and still in use. It took time however, and he risked being spotted. 

He headed up to his room for his flasks of blood, then remembered his intruder. 

“If you put the body in the basement, it’s all right, you know. I won’t tell anyone.” 

He knew there probably wasn’t anyone else here, his sense of smell was so acute he could always tell, but he didn’t know what else to make of recent events. Right now though he was hungry, so he headed for his room and the flasks he’d left there last night. He’d hardly stepped one foot on the stairs when the doorbell rang. 

It was his instruments, all carefully packed and crated up. He oversaw them being carried into the dining room and being more excited than he was hungry, he began prying open the crates and uncovering the cases from the packing material. 

It was only his favourite instruments that he had shipped to him, a violin, a bass and electric guitar, an acoustic Gibson guitar, and a viola. There already was a piano here, although it probably needed tuning. 

A third crate held his turntables, mixing desk, amps, and various other recording equipment. Packed into a corner were some of his favourite vinyl albums. He selected one now and set it up on the turntable. 

It came as no surprise that one of his albums was already on there, probably the one he’d heard earlier. He’d figure the mystery out eventually and with his instruments and music around him, he felt far calmer. 

He put the needle on the record and sat back to listen to Schubert's Winterreise, a recording Peter

Anders with Michael Raucheisen from in Berlin in 1945, a performance he’d actually attended with Eve, and he closed his eyes to better enjoy it. 

A sudden thump caught his attention, from the basement if he want very much mistaken, and he headed down there. He didn’t bother to hurry, it hadn’t helped so far, after all. 

***

Alex watched with a kind of dumb fascination as he uncovered the body, then shut it up again. She thought that perhaps he was putting things back as he found them, only he never did call the police. He took a delivery instead, then unpacked his instruments, and mixing desks and shit, which were very nice, she conceded, then he sat down to listen to an album! 

She thought a reminder was in order and she kicked the three piled up trunks until they fell over, making less of a crash than she might wish but she heard his footsteps a few seconds later, so he had heard. 

He came down and she watched as he spotted the trunks and rolled his eyes. He stacked them up again, shook them slightly to make sure they were stable, and draped the dust sheet back over them.  What the hell!

She watched in astonishment as he climbed the stairs once more. 

Was he senile or something? Had he forgotten what was in that trunk? 

She followed him back up, only just resisting the temptation to reveal herself. She didn’t want to do anything rash, like frighten him away. 

She was so close! If only he wasn’t so dense! 

Hiding herself was starting to take a toll on her though, so she made her way back up and stopped in the hallway so she could listen to his music.  It was nice to hear something new. 

As she relaxed into the melody, she drifted. 

***

Adam returned to the sitting room and relaxed back on the sofa. Something was definitely going on here, but he wasn’t sure what. 

Nevertheless he had an eternity to figure it out. 

After the album finished, he got his blood out and stored it in the kitchen; he had a secret compartment he could use to keep prying eyes away, then once he was fed he got his laptop out and did some research into local blood banks, and specifically their employees. He was looking for someone with financial troubles or a criminal record. Preferably both. 

He found three possible candidates but dismissed one as being too low on the pole, he was a cleaner in the lab and Adam doubted he was given much, if any, access to the blood. 

Of the two remaining, he picked the one in most debt, who also had a prior criminal record for joyriding as a teenager. Clearly he didn’t mind bending the rules sometimes. Adam researched his online persona and transferred the equivalent of £1,000 to his bitcoin account. 

He then emailed, offering much more where that came from. He explained that he worked for a small but cutting-edge medical research company but had to keep their technology on the down low because of worries that their designs would be stolen. He worded it to give the impression he was in nanotechnology, but he didn’t confirm that.

People were always more accommodating if they thought you weren’t doing anything criminal. And competition in the health sector was notoriously cutthroat!

With that done, he placed an ad online for a day person. He explained he suffered from xeroderma pigmentosum and couldn’t go out in sunlight, which wasn’t a total lie. He went on to explain what he would need on a day to day basis which wasn’t much, and he explained how good the compensation was. 

He played a few more records then had another shot of blood before turning in. 

***

When Alex became aware of her surroundings it was daylight and she realised she had zoned out. 

She often did that when she overexerted herself but she tried not to. Her greatest fear was that she would one day zone out and never come back. 

She quickly got her bearings and wondered how long it had been this time. She looked outside and was pleased to note that the weather looked the same, so hopefully it was just a few hours, maybe a day or two. 

He headed upstairs to check on her visitor, worried he might have left while she was unaware, but he was sleeping the day away once more, dead to the world as far as she could tell. 

His covers were pushed low and she could see the outline of his abs. He was actually kind of sexy, now he thought about it. The homeless hair didn’t do much for her, but she remembered his eyes were mesmerising, and those cheekbones were to die for. What she wouldn’t have given for those. 

While he slumbered she headed down to the basement, certain that he must have done something about the trunk by now, but no, it sat there, still covered by a sheet. 

“Give me strength,” she muttered. 

Okay, so he was going to need a bit more prodding.

She removed the sheet, lifted the top trunk off and opened the second one, revealing the bones. 

Mr. Blue Eyes was about to get a rude awakening. 

***

Adam awoke to lots of thumping and with a begrudging yawn, he got up and headed for the source, clad only in a robe he managed to grab on the way out. 

Unsurprisingly, the noise was coming from the basement. He flicked the light on, squinting at the brightness as he made his way down. 

The noise had topped now but what had made the ruckus was painfully obvious. The place was a mess and anything that could be overturned, had been. There wasn’t much mess, just about 15 heavy items on their sides. 

“It’s too early for this shit,” he muttered. It was dusk, he could tell by how little light came through the windows, but he wasn’t exactly a morning person. 

He began to straighten things up, but stilled when he noticed the trunk open. 

He approached it with caution, wondering who would do this. Was someone taunting him? 

The body was still there, he’d been half hoping that whoever put her there had removed her, but he still had that problem to solve. 

He closed the trunk, righted the furniture, and made his way out of the basement. He was hungry. 

***

Alex could have screamed in rage! Clearly this man intended to do nothing! NOTHING!

She was tempted to kick the furnishings over once more, but she didn’t want to risk becoming overtired again. 

Instead she made her way to the kitchen, where she saw him filling a glass with what looked like blood.

She hid as he passed her, then she followed him to the living room.

Well, no wonder he wouldn’t report her body, he was a fucking blood drinking psycho! Who knew how many other bodies there were around here?

He sat down on the sofa and brought the small glass to his lips, drinking it slowly and clearly savouring it. He looked fucking orgasmic! 

Then he lowered his empty glass, laid his head back on the sofa and as he closed his eyes, a fang glinted off a street light. 

“Holy fuck, you’re a vampire!”

His head shot up, although he seemed disoriented. 

“Who the fuck are you and what are you doing in my house?” 

She realised she was visible. It took concentration to hide her energy and he had shocked her out of it. 

“I said, who are you?” he sat forward, looking mean as hell. 

“Alexandra. Alex.” 

“Why are you here?” he demanded. 

“I don’t have a choice.” 

He came at her at a lightning fast speed, clearly intent on taking her upper arms and pinning her to the wall. Instead he just passed through her. 

“What the fuck?” he looked down at his hands, then to her. “What are you?” 

“I’m a ghost, I think,” she admitted. “Hi.” She gave him an awkward finger wave.

He shook his head. “I suppose those are your bones in the basement?” 

“Yep,” she nodded. 

“Fuck.” He sat back on the sofa and leaned his head back again. “Why didn’t you just show yourself to me? Why all the games?” 

Alex sat beside him. “Because I’ve been trying to get someone to find my body for… years, but if they see me, they tend to shriek and run away! I keep trying to subtly get them down to the basement, but only one person a year ever comes in here and they’re frightened out of their minds to start with. I guess my attempt made the house look haunted-”

“Evidently, the house is haunted.”

“Well yes, but now that the people coming here know that, everyone just runs when they get too spooked. Mostly they don’t make it past the hallway, even when I don’t do anything, their own footsteps are enough to send them running. People are so frightened of everything, you know? Anyway, you should sue whoever you were paying to look after this place, if I hadn’t been keeping this house up for you, it would be in a mess by now. ”

“I suppose I should thank you.” 

“My pleasure,” she smirked, even though he hadn’t actually thanked her. 

Her mind was racing, wondering how to best convince him to help her. He clearly had his own secrets to keep, but she needed help, she needed answers, and she needed resolution!

“So, what year is it?” she asked. 

He frowned for a moment, two little lines appearing between his brows as he thought.  “2016.” 

She gasped in shock. 2016? 2016!

“Why?” he asked, peering at her reaction. 

“I’ve been here nearly fifteen years,” she said. “I thought eight, maybe ten, but fifteen?” She felt like crying. Not that she could, but the aura people saw would appear to be crying if she looked in a mirror. 

He reluctantly raised his head off the back of the sofa. “Who did this to you?” 

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I was on a night out with my boyfriend. I remember he picked me up, then we got in his car, then nothing until I woke up here.” 

“Maybe you were in an accident?” 

She shook her head. 

“How can you be so sure?” he asked. 

“Because I looked at my body, I’d been stabbed in the throat and chest. I guess that evidence is gone now, but the police might find something on the bones to help them.” 

Adam almost said something, but closed his mouth. 

“What?” 

“Nothing.” 

“Well anyway, I need you to call the police, or take my bones to them.”

“I can’t do that,” Adam shook his head. 

“Please!” she begged. “You don’t have to get involved, just leave me somewhere they can find me.”

“And what if you’re linked back to me?” 

“Dump the bones out of the trunk,” she suggested. 

“And what if once they identify you, they discover that you came here before you were killed?”

“Why would I come here?” she asked, her tone becoming slightly shrill with desperation. 

“Why would your body be here if you didn’t?” he countered. 

Alex really did feel like crying now, and Adam saw big fat tears welling in her eyes. He felt a little bad, but she was dead and he wasn’t, so his needs came first. 

“What good would it do anyway?” he huffed. “You’re just as dead.”

“I know, but maybe if I had some answers, I could move on!” 

“How do you know what’s next is any better than this?”

“Because it has to be,” she replied simply. 

“Just because you want something, doesn’t make it so.”

“I have spent 15 years in this house, trapped within these walls! This is the first conversation I’ve had since the night I died! If it wasn’t for your books and record collection, I’d have gone mad long ago. So whatever comes after this, it can’t be worse than living an eternity in solitary confinement.”

Her tears spilled over and Adam actually felt bad. Not that he would let that show.

“Well, you have company now,” he huffed. “I won’t run screaming like people do.”

“And what happens when you leave?” she asked. “You haven’t been here in 15 years, longer judging by the state of things when I woke up here. How long will I be alone for before you come back again?” 

Adam was feeling guilty, which made him gruff. 

“Well, why haven’t you tried to find out who killed you?” he demanded. 

“How, exactly?” she was losing her temper. 

“Well you’re a free agent, go out and find who did it!”

Her anger fled and was replaced by more tears. 

“Do you honestly think that if I could leave this shithole, I wouldn’t have? I think I’m tied to the place because I can’t leave. Every time I try, I literally disappear! I wake up weeks, sometimes months later… I’ve lost so much time, maybe even years later. It terrifies me that one day I won’t come back, but desperation makes me try again.”

Her despair was frighteningly familiar. 

“Maybe part of you would like it to end that way. Maybe it’s easier,” he suggested. 

“Maybe,” she admitted. “But I’m not fucking done yet. No way am I giving up before I know who did this to me!”

Her tears were falling faster now, worrying Adam. “Look, I shouldn’t have said that. Any of it. I’m sorry.” 

She offered him a slight smile and wiped her tears away. 

“No, here I am, in your home, messing with your stuff. I’m the one who’s sorry.” 

“Well you didn’t exactly have a choice.” 

“I know.” She admitted. “I’m still sorry.” 

They sat in silence for a few moments. 

“You know, for ages I didn’t move anything. When I took books out, I always put them back exactly where I found them. I kept worrying you’d come back but you never did. Then year after year the place stayed empty and everything was so old, it looked like the house been locked up for ages, so I began to think you’d never come back.”

“No, I travel a lot,” he admitted. “I can’t stay in one place too long, or return too soon.” 

“How long has it been since you lived here?” 

“About fifty years.” 

“It’s a lovely home.” 

“Just run down?” he reminded her. 

“Well, I don’t think it’s been decorated since the 1920s. You still have a wood burning stove in the kitchen! Your electrics are pretty good, I’ll give you that. And I tried to stick the wallpaper back on and stuff, but in the end it was easier to soak it all off.” She cringed, fearing his reaction. “At least the plaster is in good condition.” 

“I’m not bothered by the condition of my home,” he admitted. “Music is my passion.” 

“I gathered,” she smiled indulgently, looking through to the next room, where his equipment and instruments lay in one corner. 

“So how do you touch things?” he asked, swiping his hand through her. “How do you read and play music and strip wallpaper?” 

“Practice,” she explained. “It took a lot of concentration in the beginning but now it’s basically second nature. Here.” She held her hand up, palm facing him. 

Adam raised his palm and gently pressed his hand against hers, surprised when he met resistance. 

“My word,” he whispered. 

“What do I feel like?” she asked. 

“I don’t know,” he replied, his hand still touching hers. “Not like flesh. Not really even something tangible. It’s like energy or static but not quite like either one. Kind of like how I imagine the force fields that Isaac Asimov wrote about might feel.”

She liked that comparison. 

“May I?” Adam asked, pointing at his hand. 

Alex nodded and he pressed harder. Her hand didn’t move at all and neither did she seem to break a sweat.

He removed his hand and formed a fist, waiting until she nodded her agreement before punching her hand. He gasped in pain as his hand hit an immovable object, but he healed quickly and struck her hand again, then again, as hard as he could. No movement whatsoever. 

He drew his fist back again. 

“I think you need to stop now or I’m going to disappear,” she cautioned, lowering her hand. 

“Oh, right, sorry.” He looked a little sheepish. The truth was that he’d never met a ghost before and she fascinated him. He would have loved to study her, if she could stop being annoying. “It takes concentration then?” 

She nodded. “Not so much to… whoa.” She looked at her hand, which was growing fuzzy. “I think after all the mess I made downstairs, it’s too late.” 

Adam sat and watched in horror as the woman before him seemed to fade away, becoming transparent as the edges of her image blurred into their surroundings. 

“I’ll see you soon, I hope,” she tried to smile but he could see the terror in her eyes. 

He wanted to say something, to reassure her, but he couldn’t find the words. 

And then she was gone. 

He looked around the room wondering where she had gone to, exactly. 

He decided to make the most of her absence and set his music system up. He worked diligently through the night but he couldn’t help looking around for her at times. 

She was quite pretty, really… in an annoying way. 

When he was finished he checked his email and saw that he had a reply from the supervisor at the blood bank. He wanted quite a hefty sum for the blood but he promised it was all tested and free of contaminants and diseases. 

Adam transferred the money via bitcoin again, then he emailed and told the man to work late the following evening as an errand boy would be coming to collect it.

As the dawn approached and his ghost still hadn’t reappeared, he felt a twinge of worry. Not so much that she was gone, that was a relief, more than he might be responsible for her second… demise (was that the word, he wondered). She seemed like a nice person, after all, and he wasn’t a monster. 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two. 

Alex re­emerged from the ether sometime in the afternoon and after a few minutes of confusion, she went hunting for Adam. He was sleeping soundly, as expected. Now she knew that he was a vampire, her inability to wake him during the day made more sense. 

They said that vampires died again during the day. She could see Adam’s chest rise and fall, so she knew he wasn’t dead, although he was breathing far more slowly than a normal person would in slumber. 

The fact he drank blood worried her far less than it might have done at one time. Beggars really couldn’t be choosers. And he was very attractive. 

But just sort of staring at him like this was probably creepy. He would be up soon, she reasoned, so she’d read for an hour or so until he woke up.

***

Adam was slow to rouse from his slumber, until he realised one of the bedside lights was on. He turned over and found Alex lying face down on the other side of the bed, a book propped up on the pillow and her head in her hands as she read. 

“Oh great,  you’re up,” she smiled at him. 

“What are you doing in my bedroom?” he demanded gruffly. 

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “I feel better being around people, I guess.” 

“This is my room and my bed, and you have no right to be in either one.”

Her expression asked if he was dumb. “I am a ghost, your rules of etiquette don’t apply to people who can walk through walls.” 

“If you want my help, you’ll live by my rules,” he ordered. 

“Yes, Dad.” 

“It’s too early for this.” He rolled his eyes and sat up on the side of the bed, rubbing his hands over his face, as if washing without water. 

“So does that mean you’ll help me?” she asked in a small voice.

Adam sighed. “I’ve already explained, I can’t.” 

“No, I don’t mean the police or moving my body, I mean will you help me find out who did this, on our own.” 

“Alexandra­“

“Call me Alex, please.”

“Alex, I really don’t know what I can do to help.” 

“Ask people if they killed me.” 

Adam got up and caught her staring at his naked bum before pulled his dressing gown on. 

“Asking people if they killed you will draw as much, if not more attention than dumping your bones somewhere. Besides, what on earth makes you think they would be honest about it?”

“Don’t you have that vampire hypnosis thing?” 

“No.” He gave her a derisive look, then walked out. 

“Please,” she followed him down, appearing to stand on every step, yet her steps made no noise at all. “You’re my only hope.” 

Adam poured himself a measure of blood but didn’t drink it, preferring to wait until he’d gotten rid of this annoyance and could savour it. 

“What do you expect me to do?” he demanded. 

“I don’t know, just help me.” 

Adam rolled his eyes. 

“Look,” Alex tried to reason with him, “if you help me, then there’s a good chance I’ll get closure and I can pass on, which would leave you in peace.”

Now that was tempting. 

“And if it doesn’t work? If you don’t move on?” 

Her smile faded. “I’ll still leave you alone, if that’s what you want.”  “It is.” 

“Then I will,” she assured him. 

“Fine,” he huffed.

“Really?” a tentative smile formed on her lips. 

“Yes,” he barked. 

Alex clapped her hands and did a little dance around him before trying to hug him, although it took two tries as she passed through him the first time.

“Stop it,” he barked, and she released him, albeit reluctantly. 

“Don’t be sour.” 

He had to admit, her happiness did give her features a very nice glow. 

“Let’s get this over with.” He downed his glass of blood as if for Dutch courage, then he marched through to the living room. 

Alex followed after him, pouting slightly. 

“So, where do we start?” she asked as she saw him with a laptop open on the coffee table before him. 

“Research,” he replied. He was a rather taciturn fellow, she was coming to realise. 

“Okay then.” She sat beside him so she could see the screen. 

When she had died, laptops were huge, clunky devices that couldn’t do much. This one though, was streamlined and seemed capable of doing more than the desktop computers she used to work on. She kept such observations to herself however, thinking he would find them irritating. 

“What’s your full name?” he asked. He had logged onto a website. 

“Don’t you need to plug it into the phone?” she asked. 

“It has a 4G dongle.”

She had no idea what that meant but his harsh reply stopped her from asking. 

“Name, right, uh, Alexandra Casey.”

He typed the name into Google, then added ‘Edinburgh’ as there seemed to be more than a few people with her name. The narrowed search brought up mostly newspaper articles. He went through to the local newspaper, The Scotsman, and searched for her name. 

The paper had a website since 1995, although not all articles appeared online in the beginning. Some were being uploaded in 2002, when Alex disappeared, and there were 16 articles in total that mentioned her. He sorted them by date, the earliest first.

The top article was brief and confirmed the details she had told him. Her boyfriend had picked her up and that was the last time either of them were seen. 

“Bobby died too?” she asked. 

“Did you think he killed you?”

“No, Bobby would never have hurt me.” She shook her head. “But if he was killed too, why isn’t his body here as well?” 

Adam didn’t bother to reply because he didn’t know why. Instead he read on. 

The second had a few additional sighting of their car, but nowhere near this house. The third had no more information and was just appealing for witnesses. The fourth was about the discovery of Alex’s bloody coat and a knife stained with her blood in her boyfriend’s apartment. 

“You sure he didn’t do it?” Adam asked, knowing that most women were killed by their partners.

“I know he wouldn’t.” she replied vehemently. “We’d been together for four years by then, and he’d let me cry on his shoulder for months when my parents died. Trust me, he’s not a murderer.” Everyone else seemed to disagree with her and thought he had run away after murdering her in a fit of rage. 

The next article was an appeal for help finding Alex’s body by her sister. 

“She looks a lot like you but much younger,” Adam noted from the photograph. 

“She was. My mum remarried when I was ten and they had Charlotte a year later so we were only half­sisters, but I guess we both took after our Mum”

“What about your father, where is he?” 

“He died of cancer when I was young. I hardly remember him, but Martin adopted me when he married my mum, he was a good dad.” She giggled at a memory. “I used to try and pretend Charlotte was mine when she was a baby. I was always begging to be the one to give her her bottle. I shied away from changing her nappies though!”

Adam had moved onto the next article and was doing his best to ignore her reminiscences. 

Save for two, the rest of the articles were all of her sister pleading for information on the whereabouts of Robert “Bobby” McDormond, or Alex’s remains so they could bury her. Only one article differed, and that was when Alex was legally declared dead after 7 years but the cause of death was left open on her death certificate.

Even so, Charlotte did everything she could to keep Alex’s case open and in the public eye. 

Then finally, three years ago, there was a breakthrough.

When an elderly man died, an unoccupied house was cleared by his relatives, and Bobby’s Ford was found in the Garage. What was left of Bobby was in the driver’s seat. ‘Murder/suicide’ seemed to have replaced ‘murderer on the run’ as the prevailing theory of what had happened.

“Well, that seems open and shut,” Adam declared. 

“How?!” she demanded.

“Well, he killed you and hid your body, then overcome by guilt he took himself somewhere private and killed himself.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” she whispered. “He just wouldn’t.” 

She wasn’t the only one who thought so, his parents had been quite vocal in their defence of their son, both before and after his remains were discovered. 

“Well, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go out for a while, then I have some resumes to go through.” He made to close the laptop but she stopped him.

“Wait, I’d like to look through them again.” 

Adam couldn’t see the harm. “Just close the lid when you’re done.”

He left her and she sat down in his vacated seat. The mouse pad took a pit of practice to operate as a ghost but she soon got the hang of it and typed her favourite search engine, Lycos, into the address bar, pleased to see it was still around. 

She expanded her search to other newspapers and even found a few longer, more in­depth articles and think pieces. She was so immersed that she didn’t notice the door slam when Adam left, nor when he returned and she spent the rest of the night engrossed in articles and speculation about what miht have happened that night. 

***

Adam returned with two weeks supply of blood and stored it in his hideaway. As he passed by the entrance to the living room, he could see that Alex was still on his laptop. He decided to leave her be and spent the rest of the night working on his music. She was still on the computer when the dawn came and he headed to bed. 

It was slightly irritating as he had wanted to check replies to his ad asking for an assistant, but given that she had just discovered that her boyfriend killed her, Adam decided not to interrupt her and used his phone to reply to messages, even if he did hate the tiny keyboard and autocorrect. When was it going to learn that he never ever meant ‘ducking’? 

He headed to bed at dawn and once again awoke to find her in bed with him, reading another book. 

“I thought we talked about this,” he mumbled. 

“You talked.”

“You were supposed to listen.”

“Yeah, well what with being alone for 15 years I’ve sort of lost the fine art of conversation,” she said with a note of sarcasm. “Oh and speaking of, what’s your name?” 

“My name?” 

“Yeah, I forgot to ask.”

Adam didn’t reply. 

“Look, I know I’m a little artless in the social intercourse department, but I figure if we’re going to be roomies, I should know your name.”

“Didn’t you promise to leave me alone if I helped you find who killed you?” 

“I did, but you haven’t done that yet.” 

“Just because you don’t want to believe it, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.” He swung his feet around and sat on the side of the bed. “And stop ogling my back.”

“I wasn’t­ Okay, I totally was. Can you blame me?” 

“Yes. Now behave, I have some people coming around this evening.”

He dressed in black trousers and dark grey shirt but he didn’t bother with socks or shoes. He headed downstairs for his first meal of the day and she followed. 

“Look, I know you’re happy to believe he did it, but he didn’t.” 

Adam ignored her in the hopes she would go away. 

“Please, he really was a great guy. Please? … Okay, when Bobby was 5 years old, he rescued a wild baby rabbit that had been attacked by a weasel and took it to the vet and kept it as his pet rabbit. He spent his gap year in Africa, helping to build wells and install irrigation systems in drought afflicted regions. When he was­”

“Stop!” Adam yelled, then he downed the blood like a shot of whisky. It did make her more tolerable. “Look, so he was a good guy, even the best can snap sometimes.” 

“Not him, he wouldn’t do that!”

“How do you know? Some people live secret lives and their partners never find out.”

“He wasn’t like that.”

“What about financial worries, they can make people break? Perhaps he was a secret gambler.”

“Even supposing that’s true, I was worth more to him alive than dead.”

“How much more?” he asked, interest piqued. 

“Nearly two million.”

“You were wealthy then?”

“My adopted dad was. Between my trust fund, his life insurance and my inheritance, I was worth close to two mill all in, but we hadn’t changed our wills or taken out life insurance on each other or anything, and he knew that. We were going to sort that stuff after the wedding.” 

“Feel free to use my laptop again; you have as much chance of finding information on there as I do,” he argued. 

“I tried last night. We need to go out and talk to people, maybe get a copy of the autopsy or the inquest into Bobby’s death.” 

“Look, I’m not poking my not into other people’s business,” he snapped. “Now I’m expecting three people so for god’s sake, so keep the hell out of my way!”

He stormed out of the room and into the dining room, now his studio, and to his immense relief she didn’t follow. 

The doorbell rang about fifteen minutes later with his first applicant. He had outlined some of their duties in the advert but he needed to meet them to see how trustworthy they were, after all, a nondisclosure agreement was useless if they broke it anyway. 

He ushered the first one, a man in his early 20s who had an interest in music and wanted to make connections. He was all wrong, more interested in a career than in the art. Adam needed someone who loved music for its own sake, not someone who was trying to network his way to the top. 

All the way through the interview he kept having a shiver run through his body and every so often, he would break out in goose bumps. By the ten minute mark he looked thoroughly freaked out and Adam realised that Alex was toying with him somehow. 

“I think that’s enough for now,” he said to both the man before him and Alex.

***

Alex had spent most of her time as a ghost trying not to scare people away, so she wasn’t great at this haunting lark, but she was quickly finding her way.

She stayed invisible and tried walking through the visitor, but that had no effect. Next she tried running a finger up their back, using the lightest touch, but that had no effect until she used more energy, then they felt her and a cold shiver ran straight through them.

After doing that a few times, she tried to take their hand, or move a foot, not enough to jolt it, just enough to be felt by the poor chap. He was getting more and more freaked out by the second.    

Adam clearly twigged but his wrath wasn’t about to stop her. 

He showed the man out, then turned around and glared at the seemingly empty hallway. 

“Show yourself.” 

She didn’t. Instead she tried running her hand up the length of his back, which made him swear as he flinched away. 

“Fucking hell, what was that?” 

Alex stayed silent and invisible. 

“Stop fucking around. You might have no needs on the mortal plane, but I still do.”

He went back into his studio and picked up a guitar, gently strumming it to relax himself and since touching people and turning invisible could be draining, Alex went into the next room to wait for his next visitor. 

The next person to show up was a young blonde man. 

Adam ushered him into the studio and sat him down while Alex watched, waiting for the right moment to disrupt things. 

“I have a skin condition which means I can't go out in sunlight,” Adam explained. “As such, I tend to live my life at night, which can be limiting. The internet has been great for people like me, but there’re still some things I can’t do, or am uncomfortable doing. The list of things I may ask you to do is long and varied, anything from having packaged delivered to your address because I’m asleep during the day, to paying a bill, to attending an auction to bid on instrument, but you’ll be well rewarded for your time.” 

“You said you were a collector in your ad,” he nodded along. 

“Do you have much knowledge of instruments and their resale value?” 

“I know my­ Oh!”

Alex ran a finger up his spine. 

“Sorry,” Adam sat forward. “It’s an old house, we get some weird drafts. You may also hear odd settling noises and other such occurrences. My mother swore the place was haunted but I’ve never seen anything.” 

“Haunted?” 

Alex could see that he was trying to take away her power by admitting that weird things were happening. 

Well let him explain this then!

She stood behind Adam and slowly made herself visible so as not to frighten the visitor.

“… working on my own music,” he explained his circumstances. “Right now I have a day job in bakery to make ends meet but with the late gigs, it can be murder. I’d love to find something that could support me and still allow me the freedom to…”

Alex was miming having her throat slashed and being stabbed, then pointing to Adam, who was oblivious to her presence behind him. 

“…freedom to…” he gulped as the stab wound opened up on Alex’s throat and chest. This was her default appearance and it had taken her a lot of time to learn how to do away with the gruesome signs of her untimely death. Those wounds were why she’d frightened away the first few agents when she appeared to them; now however, her natural gruesome appearance was coming in very handy.

“I’m sorry, I just remembered a prior appointment,” the man stood up and backed towards the door. “I really have to go. Sorry for wasting your time. “

Alex faded before Adam could see her. 

Two down, one to go.

“You know,” her disembodied voice echoed out into the hallway once the front door closed. “If you would just help me, I’ll stop all this nonsense.”

Adam growled. He actually growled, like an animal, and it actually sent a shiver down Alex’s spine. Maybe he wasn’t as human as he looked.

Not that she would let a little fear stop her plan. Nope, that next interviewee was going to get the fright of their life.

She was just wondering if she should wait outside and scare them away before they rang the bell, when she heard Adam making a phone call. He was interviewing the third candidate by phone, the bastard! What’s more, Adam sounded pleased with whoever he was speaking to. 

She couldn’t do anything about it at the moment but the first time his new assistant showed up, Alex was going to give him or her the fright of their life! 

Alex huffed and retreated to the library but she turned invisible a few seconds later when he stormed in and began searching the shelves. He plucked out a book called A guide to Witches, Ghosts and Exorcisms.

She wasn’t worried, the section on ghosts only explained how to evict a soul who had taken over a living body, nothing about being able to banish a regular old ghost who was minding her own business. 

Honestly, it was written in the Victorian age when mysticism and psychics were all the rage, so she was sure it was mostly claptrap anyway. 

But fine! If Adam wasn’t going to play ball, she’d have to up the ante. 

***

Alex had spent most of the rest of the night invisible and following Adam around, watching for ways to best annoy him. In the process of watching him however, she discovered online shopping. He was visiting a site called Amazon and ordering a cable, then he browsed speakers for a while, then he ordered a new television. 

She also discovered his name as he checked out, Adam. 

He didn’t seem like an Adam; thanks to the bible, she pictures Adams as sort of innocent, maybe slightly dumb, and blindly following orders. 

No, his name didn’t suit him at all, but at least she had a name for him. 

After that he went for a walk, and she couldn’t follow him further than about 10 feet from the house, then he played some music until dawn. 

As soon as he was asleep, she hopped on the computer and went to the Amazon site. Had this been around before she died? Well if it had, she had been oblivious to it. 

Having not bought anything in almost 15 years, she went a little crazy. Most of the things she purchased were for the house; yes she wanted to annoy Adam, but she wasn’t a thief, although she couldn’t resist ordering herself some new books. She had been through every single book in Adam’s library and few of them were younger than 50 years. 

She ordered two Dean Koontz, a Patricia Cornwell, a Faye Kellerman, then she remembered Harry Potter! She’d read the first four before she died but now the series was finished, so of course she ordered the final three books. 

Although the temptation was strong, she forced herself to stop there.

Almost everything promised to be there the next day, so tomorrow night Adam was going to wake up to a bit of a shock!

As such, she left him alone that night, preferring to read in the library. Besides, she was so excited about her new acquisitions that she was sure he would realise something was wrong if he saw her. 

***

First to arrive was a two large Leonid Afremov prints in simple wooden frames. They were bright and romantic and rich and warm, something this house desperately needed. She also ordered two ballet dancer prints from different artists. The Afremovs went in the living room and the ballet dancers in the music room. 

Next came some throw covers, which she used to cover up the rather old and worn sofas and armchairs, but she had to wait a little while longer for the staple gun which was necessary for her DIY reupholstering. His furniture was mostly the old fashioned kind, that didn’t have detachable cushions but on the few pieces that did, she cut the throws up and used safety pins to recover the cushions. She’s also ordered some scatter pillows, just to make the place look nicer.

Next, some storage boxes helped her to tidy and declutter both rooms.

Her book shipment arrived next and she had to sign for this delivery. She was careful not to touch the delivery driver as she took his little device and signed her name on the screen. As long as no one touched her, she could look normal enough now that she had learned to hide her stab wounds. 

The final touches were new rugs to replace his rather old and faded ones, a couple of light sculpture lamps which brought things into the 21st century, and a few decorative vases on the newly cleared           ornamental tables, which altogether made the place look more polished 

She knew she was going to fade away at some point soon and she regretted that she would probably not be around to see Adam’s reaction to her work, but she’d had little choice but to get it all done in one day or otherwise he would have stopped her. 

Still, she might have a few minutes left, so she picked up the next Harry Potter book and began reading. Almost thirty minutes later the book fell to the floor when she could no longer find the energy to hold it. 

“See you soon,” she whispered to the room. Over the years, the words had become her lucky mantra, and superstition ensured she continued saying them, even if no one else was there to hear her. 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Adam was blissfully alone when he awoke, and free to take his time getting out of bed. By the time he went downstairs, he had concluded that Alex was still ignoring him and once he had poured his first ration of blood for the day, he headed through to the living room to savour it. 

He took a seat on the sofa and sipped it slowly, closing his eyes to better appreciate the taste and the feeling it gave him. 

It wasn’t until the glass was empty and he opened his eyes that he saw the new painting before him, hanging over the fireplace. 

He looked around and noticed all the changes she had made. 

Her taste wasn’t bad, actually. Okay, some of it was a little incongruous with the house, but nothing awful. Honestly, Adam didn’t really care where he lived or what it looked like, as long as it was functional and kept the sun and rain out, he was happy. 

It was actually kind of nice to see the place brightened up a little. The prints she’d hung were nice too, not really to his taste, but undeniably appealing. He’d have bought the originals, of course, not a print. 

He wondered why she did it, but he wasn’t really concerned about it having been done. Maybe a project was just what she needed to keep her out of his hair. 

He headed through to the studio and was even more pleased by the look in there. The ballerinas even inspired him to write something lighter and more fluid, like a dance. 

His new assistant, Erin, came at about 9pm with his deliveries, which he’d had sent to her home, since she was awake to sign for packages. They chatted briefly about music and Adam tested her knowledge a bit. He hadn’t really had a chance to thoroughly interrogate her on the phone, but it seemed he had made a good choice. He paid her handsomely and they parted ways without any interference from Alex.

 All in all, Adam was quite happy with the state of his world… until he checked his emails shortly before dawn. 

“Alex!” he yelled. She didn’t reply so he searched the house from top to bottom. She was nowhere to be found but at least he had cooled down by the time he was finished. 

He realised that she probably wasn’t hiding; what she had done today had doubtless taken a lot of energy on her part so she had probably disappeared. He hoped for good, but he was sure he couldn’t be that lucky. 

She hadn’t spent a fortune and he could well afford to cover it, but he couldn’t have her spending that every night. Well no, he could afford it, he had made some very good investments over the course of his very long life, and 400 years of interest was no small matter either. Of course it was all owned by corporations these days, to hide the fact that the same man had owned the same properties for hundreds of years. 

That didn’t mean he was going to let her spend a few hundred pounds of his money every day though.

He added a password to his computer then headed to bed. 

*** 

Alex resurfaced mid-morning and after a quick check, she could see that nothing had changed since last night. 

She’d been hoping for a sign that he was mad, the throws pulled off, or the pictures taken down. Hell, she’d have settled for a throw pillow knocked off the sofa, but nope. 

She’d have to proceed with the second part of her plan, and to that end she retrieved the box from the library and with the detangle brush and silicone detangle spray in hand, she made her way to his bedroom. 

His hair wasn’t terribly matted, just incredibly tangled, so she made good progress but he could do with a haircut.  He was sleeping on his front and his sleep was so heavy that she was able turn his head to do both sides without waking him. When she was finished she got a bowl of water and by dipping the brush in it, dampened his locks. There seemed to be a slight curl to his hair, she noted, and it was still kind of wild and wiry, but at least he didn’t look homeless any more. 

With that done, she headed down to the library to continue reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. 

*** 

When Adam again awoke alone he felt a twinge of unease. He hadn’t seen Alex for nearly two days now, what if she had disappeared forever? 

He tried to tell himself that was a good thing but his conscience pricked. 

Besides, could it really hurt to help her, he wondered. 

Unfortunately it very much could. He had no magical or mystical powers that could help him investigate. Sure, he was strong, fast and agile, but how did that help him solve a murder? 

No, sticking his nose into other people’s business could draw the attention of the authorities, and people who burn up in the sun do not ever want to be arrested. Helping her was not a good plan. 

His conscience pricked again, because they would have to catch him first and his speed made that exceptionally difficult. 

He made his way downstairs and as he turned the kitchen light on, called to his unwanted guest. 

“Look. I know you’re upset that I won’t help you, and I’m sorry about that, I just can’t afford to. I wish I could. Just let me know you’re all right, okay?” 

She appeared in front of him, a sly smile on her lips. 

“You look good,” she smirked. 

Adam frowned at the unusual remark. 

“Your hair could do with a trim though.” 

He went to the window where he could see his reflection in the glass. 

“What the fuck have you done?” he demanded, feeling his now rather soft and silky locks. 

“I detangled that matt. You’re welcome.” 

“Welcome?” he demanded. “I’m a fucking vampire, not a boy band member!” 

“Well, you are a musician. I can give you a Bieber cut if you want. I was reading about him online the other day, catching up on my celebrity gossip. I’m a bit behind the times.” 

If looks could kill, Alex would be dead for a second time right now. Seeing that he was truly angry, she became serious. 

“Look, I’m sorry. I know I’ve been frustrating you but please try to see things from my perspective. I’ve been all alone here for 15 years, just waiting for my chance to get answers.” 

Adam’s anger cooled slightly as she began to talk. “I understand that, but you have your answers.” 

“If Bobby really did kill me and that’s the answer, why am I still here?” 

“Maybe because you refuse to accept the truth.” 

“No, it’s because I need to know what happened. Even if you’re right and he did kill me, why? It goes against everything I know about him and he gained nothing from my death, so why? What happened to make him snap?” 

Those eyes of hers, big and round and shining with tears… they were going to be his undoing. 

“All right,” he huffed. “But we do this my way and if anything seems too dangerous, we don’t do it. My word is final, understood?” 

She didn’t dance around this time but she offered him a grateful smile. 

“Thank you.” 

Adam huffed and walked through her to get to his blood supply. 

“So…” Alex was clearly impatient to start but unwilling to irritate him now he had agreed to help. 

“What, uh, what do you think our first step should be?” 

If she could, Alex would talk to her sister and ask everything she knew about the case. 

Adam downed the blood like a shot then turned to her. 

“I’ll start with background checks,” he replied. “I need a list from you. I want the names, and if you know them, addresses and dates of birth for anyone who might profit from your death, not your inheritance, but people who wanted your job, or wanted to buy your house, or fancied your boyfriend. Then I want all your close friends, family members, and all of your exes.” 

“Why them?” 

“Because most women are killed by someone they know, usually an former partner.” 

“Okay. Anything else?” 

“That’ll do for now. While you write that, I’ll try and hack into the police server and see if your case files are on computer.” 

“You can hack?” she sounded surprised. 

“Yeah.” 

“Where did you learn to do that?” 

“I have no job, I’m independently wealthy, and I’m going to live forever. What else am I going to do with my time?” 

She felt a little foolish. “I just assumed vampires would be outdated, you know, preferring things done the old fashioned way.” 

“Clearly you’ve never written with a quill,” he deadpanned. 

“Touché,” Alex grinned.

***

Alex sat with the paper before her but so far, she had only jotted down Bobby’s details, more to prove his innocence to Adam than anything. 

She’d gone through all her friends in her mind but she knew they wouldn’t have killed her. As for people who might benefit, there was John Dunlap. He was the new guy at the estate agency Alex had been a partner in, and from day one he had made trouble. He was the most sexist, egotistical, rude and boorish man she’d ever met, and working in real estate, that was saying something! She was days away from firing him when she’d died. In fact she’d had a meeting on that Monday with her partner, Matthew Moody, to discuss it. Dunlap had only lasted so long because he was a damn good salesman, but there was only so much you could put up with for profit.

Matthew might have stood to benefit from her death too. She didn’t think for a second that he had killed her, but they both had life insurance on each other so that in the event of an untimely death, they could buy their partners share from their relatives. She had dated Matt briefly as well, she’d met him at University and they had dated for two months before they realised they were better friends than lovers. Two years later they decided to go into business together and they’d run it ever since. Their 10 year business anniversary had been coming up. 

She put their names on the list too. 

As for her friends and family though, she thought investigating them was a waste of time so for now, she didn’t write their names down. 

She went through to the living room to hear the printer whirring. 

“You found my file?” she asked. 

“Partly. Your file consists of an evidence log and a list of all the investigating done.”

“Like, ‘interview with so and so at this address, on date and time’?” she asked. 

“Basically. Sometimes they include a very short description but the bulk of your file is physical and since you’re officially unsolved, it’s kept in storage.”

“It’s not ‘officially unsolved’, it IS unsolved!” 

“Not according to the police, they think your boyfriend killed you. The only reason your case hasn’t been closed is because they don’t have your body.”

“Do a background check on him.” Alex handed him the piece of paper and three names and the information he had asked for. “He doesn’t even have a parking ticket.” 

“There’s only three names here.” 

“I thought that would be enough for now.” 

“Fine, I’ll start on this, you read your file, there might be something useful in there.”

Adam sat with his computer and Alex retrieved the pages from the printer.

They had officially interviewed, as in a recorded interview done under caution, only two people, John Dunlap and a neighbour of hers, Paul Mason. Paul was a nice man as she recalled, a bit of a loner, and old enough to be her father, maybe closer to her grandfather, but he didn’t seem like the murderous type. She wondered what he had said to make him a suspect and she desperately wanted to listen to the tape, or read a transcript.

Each entry into the database was followed by a code which appeared to be made up on her case number which was at the top of each page, then the date, followed by initials then another code, so if she could find out where her files were stored she would know how the filing system worked. 

Where were police files kept? If it was in a warehouse, she might be able to convince Adam to break in and get the file but if it was in the basement of a station or something, she was screwed. 

***

Adam began the background checks with Bobby, or Robert McDormond, hoping he could find something damning in his past to convince Alex that he had killed her. 

Instead he was beginning to think she was right. 

She was wrong in that Bobby did have parking tickets, five to be exact, and they had all been paid in full in plenty of time. 

Other than that though, he was a boy scout. 

After a gap year in Malawi, he graduated with a degree in English, then returned and taught English as a foreign language for a year. He then came back to Scotland and began working for a comprehensive school in Edinburgh, then he moved to a local private school.

As well as his kids getting excellent grades, he was usually one of the teachers who took the children away for a week in the holidays and volunteered to help the kids play sports on the weekends. 

Bobby had no prior arrests, paid his taxes in full and on time, owned a rescue cat, gave to charity, and regularly visited his parents. Adam checked his university and employment references, as well as those given for his placements abroad and everyone spoke highly of him. 

He even checked his bank statements but there were no suspicious transactions. 

Adam had met a lot of killers in his time, some of them outright monsters, some of them wolves in sheep’s clothing. Bobby seemed to be neither. 

Contrary to what he’d told Alex, Adam was actually quite well versed in crime and forensics, it was a useful skill to have for someone like him. He didn’t consider himself a murderer because he didn’t kill for pleasure, but he had killed in the past and would most likely kill again in the future. 

He didn’t often need to kill to eat, he had long ago realised that it was better to have a familiar whom he could feed from and who could be his day person. In the past he would offer shelter to a vulnerable young person, mostly girls, the type of child who would have been forced into prostitution to survive. 

It seemed barbaric to have fed from children but when he was born, the age of consent was only 12 (although many ruthless men didn’t bother to wait) and he thought that he was the lesser of two evils. The children in his time also matured much faster because they had to. The industrial revolution saw everyone pressed into work, including children from the age of about 3 to 5. Compared to the hardships of a coalmine or a cotton mill, the life he offered these children was a vast improvement.

The girls would be presented as his wards to begin with, then his sister, then his mother, finally his grandmother. The bonds he forged with them were usually deep and losing them was painful. 

He offered them all a chance to become like him, but only two had ever accepted the offer. The others saw his desperation, his loneliness, and they preferred death to an eternity like that. It ripped his heart out each time one of them died but unless he wanted to start killing, he had little choice but to find another. Each loss hardened his heart a little more though. 

When James Blundell began his experiments into human blood transfusion in the 1800s, Adam began similar tests, paying people to donate samples for his ‘research’. He published a few articles to give veracity to his claims, but mostly his interest was in feeding himself. 

There were times however, when even the best planning saw him starving. Whilst travelling to the New World, his familiar died on board the boat. They were three weeks away from land and he knew he would die if he didn’t feed. He kept it to one a week, draining them completely even although he knew eating more wouldn’t quench his thirst for longer. He killed three on the boat, tossing them overboard in the dead of night and using his speed so as not to be seen, then he’d killed another three on land before he could find a new source. 

He’d killed at other times too, but that was his largest body count in a single episode. 

As such he thought it only prudent to pay attention as crime solving became a science. 

Fingerprints didn’t deter him much, he often wore gloves. When wound analysis (matching murder weapons to injuries) and forensic odontology became popular in the Victorian era, he stopped biting people, using a knife even if he was feeding from them.

If he left blood evidence, he burned the scene, and- well truthfully he’d burned most of his recent murder scenes. That meant he’d had to study arson as well. 

Criminology also delved into psychology and profiling killers, and it was his reading in those areas which told him Bobby probably wasn’t her killer. 

He moved onto John Dunlap, her employee, and Matthew Moody, her partner and ex-boyfriend. 

Matthew had no immediate red flags pop up, but John did. He had three convictions as a teenager for assault, although being young and pleading guilty meant he’d been given little more than a slap on the wrist. 

In later years there were a few calls to his house about domestic violence, but no charges had been pressed until after Alex’s death, and in the last 15 years he’d been convicted twice, even serving time in jail. He also had one conviction and one caution for possession of drugs. 

John climbed to the top of the suspect list, for now. 

Next Adam researched finances, such as the insurance policy Matthew and Alex had on each other, each man’s personal accounts, credit cards, their credit rating, and any county court judgements for unpaid debts. 

Matthew’s finances remained fairly steady, increasing only slightly when he bought Alex’s half of the business since he now had to pay an employee to do her job, so money didn’t seem to be a motive. 

John’s finances were as reckless as his temper. He seemed to be an excellent salesman and with each new job, made himself a lot of money in commissions, which he then blew on fast cars, gadgets and drugs, until he was inevitably fired for various infractions. Without a good reference, finding new employment proved tricky, he didn’t have savings, so his cards and overdrafts were maxed out, he borrowed from friends, and his life repeated that famine and feast cycle. 

Returning to the police servers, he searched Alex’s file for mentions of John, finding that he had been formally interviewed. 

He next went to google and searched for other references to the man, finding newspaper reports of some of his convictions, then an obituary dated three years ago. He had been drunk driving at night and veered onto the wrong side of the road, crashing head on with another car. All those involved died at the scene. 

Adam wondered if perhaps his reckless behaviour was as a result of guilt for killing Alex. He clearly had a violent temper but assuming he wasn’t a sociopath, he might very well regret his actions, especially since he’d been fired the week after she died anyway. 

He wondered what was on that interview tape. 

A look through Alex’s file showed that the police looked into John’s past, much as Adam was doing now, but evidently it had gone nowhere. Was that because he was innocent or because they just couldn’t find proof? 

Adam found himself hoping John wasn’t the killer since being dead already meant Alex would never see justice. He told himself that was because he wanted this over and done with so he could have his home to himself once more, but he didn’t quite believe it. 

***

“So,” Alex appeared before him. “What are the chances I can convince you to break into a warehouse and steal my file?” she asked, a silly grin on her full lips. 

“Slim to none,” he replied, putting his laptop aside and reaching for the guitar that he kept by the sofa. Alex irritated him and playing music soothed him.

“I need to know what’s in there and you’re my only hope.” 

“I appreciate that, however I don’t have a death wish.”

“Adam, please, I-”

“I said no and that’s final!” he put his guitar down and stormed from the room but Alex followed him. 

“Adam, please. Just the one thing then I’ll leave you alone, I promise.”

“You promised that my word was final,” he said, heading upstairs. 

“And it is! But I didn’t say I wouldn’t try and change your mind.” 

Adam began undressing, not caring that she was about to get an eye full, maybe it would send her away, but no such luck. She did turn away but she continued pestering him as he climbed into bed. Luckily it was nearly dawn and sleep insulated him from her pleading. 

***

As Adam came down the stairs the following evening, it was with more than a little trepidation. What would he find today? She couldn’t order from websites any more as he had password protected his computer, so what would she do? Break furniture? Cause a flood? Hide his blood supply? 

He didn’t know but as he looked around the various rooms, he saw nothing out of place. 

Maybe she had decided to stop begging him. It was a long shot but that was the outcome he was hoping for. 

He’d missed his second glass of blood last night, so he poured himself two tonight as a little treat, and either a reward or commiseration, depending on Alex. 

Sitting on the living room sofa, he closed his eyes and sipped viscous liquid, savouring it. Drinking blood was the only time Adam felt alive. It began in his chest, like a warmth that slowly spread to his extremities and made him feel relaxed and content, if he allowed it. The feeling faded after a few hours, which is why he had blood twice a night rather than twice as much in one go. A little extra now and then didn’t hurt though. 

He reached for the guitar beside the sofa and brought it onto his lap, then he began strumming a melody he’d been working on. 

His euphoric feeling fled after three notes and he sat bolt upright while he examined the guitar. That little menace had restrung his guitar! D was now A, A was B, B was G, G was D! The whole thing was a mess! 

He went into the dining room and discovered that she’d done the same to all his stringed instruments. 

“ALEX!” he roared. 

She appeared in front of him, clearly having been watching him the whole time. 

“If you help me, I’ll stop,” she explained. 

Adam’s frustration showed itself in his pacing the length of the room. 

“If it was that easy, don’t you think I’d have dumped your bones by now and just be rid of you? My life isn’t a game, Alex, and I can't afford to go playing around in police business!” 

“All right, but at least discuss it with me. Maybe we can come up with a way to get that file. Like, you could use your speed and be in and out in seconds.”

“They’ll have cameras, good ones, so they could still get a picture of me,” he snapped, running a hand through his only very slightly tangled locks. 

“Then maybe we can hire someone to do it,” she suggested.

“You mean, _I_ hire someone.” 

“Well, yes,” she admitted. “But only because I don’t have any money.” She batted her eyes at him. “Please? I'd do it myself if I could.”

“Even if we hire someone, it’s still connected to us because he has to bring us the file.” Something about her words was bothering him and the distraction was cooling his anger and slowing his pacing. “What if the police follow him?” he asked. 

“Then meet somewhere else, somewhere you can watch to see if he’s being followed.”

It took him a few moments to answer. “And if there’s a tracker in the file?” 

“We’ll check for that.” 

“We,” he muttered. “Tell me, when you pick something up, can you make it invisible?” 

“I can, actually, I just stuff it under my clothes, if I was actually wearing real clothes, and then it’s as visible or invisible as me.”

“And walking through walls?” he asked. 

“Nope, I can’t walk through walls with solid objects, not even when they’re invisible.” 

Adam stopped pacing and sat down, his index finger running over his lips while he thought. 

“You do realise I can’t leave this house,” she reminded him. 

“If you could, you would,” he repeated back at her. 

“Exactly.” 

Adam met her eye. “I think there’s a way you can.” 


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

From the porch, Alex looked at Adam, her eyes wide with apprehension. 

“Come on,” he urged. 

“What if it doesn’t work?” 

“It will,” he assured her. 

Adam’s home wasn’t set in a lot of grounds, probably about an 8th of an acre, but a well as being old and thus surrounded with mature trees, the driveway came in at an angle, so most of the house wasn’t visible from the road. 

Alex looked at the bone he held, her thigh bone to be exact, and although she was frightened of disappearing again, she stepped away from the house, closer to Adam. 

She approached the crack in the paving which was her safety marker, after that, she had maybe three feet. She looked up at Adam, who was beckoning her forward and closing her eyes, she quickly stepped over the crack, rushing towards Adam. 

She felt herself pass through him and turned to look back. She was about ten meters away from the house, further than she’d ever been! 

She enveloped Adam in a hug kissing his cheek and making him grimace. 

She pulled away slightly, then holding his head still, she kissed him again, right on the lips. 

“Eugh, get off me!” he exclaimed, trying to push her away but even with all his strength, he couldn’t move her until she let him go. 

She was jumping around him, so excited at the prospect of going out. 

“Let’s try it again,” Adam said.

“Again?” she was still dancing around. “But we know it works.” 

“Yes, but carrying a femur around might just attract the wrong sort of attention, so we need to make sure that carrying a smaller bone would have the same effect, then we need to measure exactly how far from the bone you can travel.” 

She stopped dancing and stood with her back to him. “But we won’t know until I go far enough to disappear.”

“I know, but you always come back, don’t you?” 

“I’ll be gone for hours, maybe even days.” Her voice was filled with sorrow and Adam almost felt bad. Almost. 

“I know. Then we have to test it again, And a third time if the first two measurements aren’t the same.” 

Alex didn’t respond and Adam found himself stepping closer to her, his hands raised to put on her shoulders, although he lowered them before he could touch her. 

“You were hoping we’d go tonight,” he guessed. 

Alex nodded, keeping her back to him. Judging by the set of her shoulders, she was trying to hold her tears inside. 

“You think I’m an ass, don’t you?” 

She shrugged in reply. 

“Warehouses aren’t small buildings, Alex, and we need to do our research because we can’t have you wandering too far and disappearing, can we?” 

Unfortunately, for reasons they could only guess at, she was unable to hold her own bones. She could touch everything except that which had been a part of her. Adam thought it was some sort of psychological block but he didn’t say as much. 

“No,” she agreed as she swiped at her eyes. 

“This is a marathon, not a sprint, remember that.” 

She nodded and swallowed. “I will.” 

“Good. I’m going down to the basement to choose something a little more discreet,” he said, indicating the femur he held. “You’d better come inside or you’ll fade away before we get a chance to test it.” 

When they ventured outside again Adam had brought a vertebra with him and a tape measure. He placed the vertebra on the ground near the back door of the property and together they walked slowly and silently away from it. 

The rear garden was larger but as they approached the rear fence, Adam began to wonder if it was large enough. 

“Uh oh,” Alex whispered, and he looked over to see her form becoming fuzzy and transparent. “I’ll see you soon,” she told him. 

Adam planted a small flag in the ground and set to measuring the distance. 24.62 meters, or 80 feet 11 inches. 

He went back inside and looked up the dimensions of the police file storage warehouse, which was far larger than 160 feet wide. If they were lucky her file would be near a wall and after he hacked into the onsite CCTV cameras, he set about trying to understand the layout. 

It was a two story structure with older files on the top floor. 

It took some doing as the cameras were supposed to monitor people not files, so they were aimed at walkways and corridors, but he eventually managed to read some of the numbers on the case file boxes. 

Unfortunately, luck wasn’t with them and as far as he could tell, her file languished somewhere in the middle of the structure, somewhere. How the hell was she going to retrieve the file if he couldn’t enter the building? He drew the line at entering a police facility himself. 

“Fuck,” he whispered, leaning back and pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. 

There had to be a way, he just hadn’t thought of it yet.

***

Adam awoke to a familiar presence beside him, but he wasn’t mad today since it salved his conscience to know his experiment hadn’t harmed her. 

“Morning,” he mumbled. 

“Hey,” she smiled at him. “Sleep well?” 

“Like the dead.” He rubbed at his eyes. “How long have you been back?” 

“Couple of hours. Why, were you worried?” 

“Relieved,” he lied, sitting on the side of the bed. 

“So what did you get up to while I was gone,” she asked, closing her book and turning sideways, propping her head up on her hand. 

“This and that. I’ll explain after I’ve eaten.” He got up and found a pair of trousers and a shirt to pull on. “It’s not nice to ogle people,” he admonished without turning towards her.

“Ogling is pretty much all I can do these days, so get used to it.” 

Adam shook his head in exasperation but there was a slight smile turning up the corners of his lips. He was even more pleased when she didn’t follow him into the kitchen this time but headed into the library. 

Adam felt as if this was progress, albeit limited. 

She returned after he had finished his blood and was ready to face the world again. 

“Last night shows that you have a limit of 80 feet from a piece of your bones,” he explained, and she looked fearful. “Don’t worry, we don’t have to repeat that experiment tonight, we have bigger problems.” 

“We do?” she cocked her head slightly to the side. 

“The warehouse is used not only for police but also ambulance, fire brigade, emergency services call logs and various other assorted things. It’s huge, two stories, and me standing outside with your bone isn’t going to give you enough distance.”

The tentative plan had been that she went inside and found the documents, turning them invisible, and he would arrange for some kind of diversion so the officers on duty didn’t notice doors opening and closing of their own volition. 

It was still a risk for Adam but it was a manageable one that he was prepared to take. 

“So we can’t do it?” tears of frustration shone in her eyes as she asked that. 

“No, no, we can,” he quickly reassured her. “I’m agile enough to jump onto the roof, then I can shadow you so that essentially, you can go anywhere.” 

She frowned as she considered that. 

“But how will you know where I am?” 

“That is the snag I’m hitting,” he admitted. “I did some research into ghost hunting last night and I’m sure most of it’s hokum, but I’m also fairly sure there must be a way to detect you. You clearly expend some kind of energy to touch things and do the various tricks you can do-.”

“They’re not tricks,” she huffed.

“No, but the point is you’re expending some kind of energy and if I can detect that, I can track it.”

She thought for a moment. “Like the Ghostbusters with their EMF devices?” 

“Yes, although EMFs are electromagnetic fields given off by things like power lines. It’s possible you give off similar energy but unlikely. Unfortunately I haven’t built up a lot of equipment here so I’ve ordered some, it should come tomorrow and Erin is going to pop in with it tomorrow night.” 

“Then we have to make this ghost detector?” 

“Yes. That could take days,” he cautioned as kindly as he could. 

Alex appeared to take a deep breath. “Well, I’ve waited this long, I can wait a little longer. I’ll get there in the end.” 

“You will,” he assured her. 

The silence between them stretched out for a beat. 

“Thank you for helping me.” 

Adam grunted in reply, which Alex thought was progress. 

“So are you going to play your music tonight?” 

“Does it bother you?” he sounded as though he expected an objection.

“No, I like it, actually. I used to play the guitar when I was a teenager.” 

“Where you any good?” he asked, his interest piqued. 

“No. I mean I could carry a tune but that was all. What I really loved was singing. I even won a few talent shows.”

“Why did you stop?” 

“My guitar got broken.”

“Why didn’t you get a new one?” 

“I did, and somehow the neck on that got broken. Dad said I couldn’t have another one until I learned to take care of things.”

“I can’t imagine not having music.”

“Well my A’ levels were coming up, and Charlie said it distracted her from her homework, then I went away to university and had to study like mad to keep up. And I could still sing, I sang all the time. I was the karaoke queen at uni.”

“You should come through, show me what you’ve got.” 

“Thanks but it’s not really singing these days anyway, it’s just a projection of how I think I sounded.”

“Even if that’s true, you can still play.” 

“I haven’t played in… well I was 18 when my second guitar broke, I died when I was 33, and I’ve been dead fourteen years, that’s…” she counted on her fingers.” 

“Let’s just say, ‘a while’,” Adam interrupted her. “And you don’t have to do anything, but feel free. You can practice while I’m asleep, if you want.”

“Thank you,” she smiled at him. “I might do that.” 

Her gratitude was making him uncomfortable. 

“Break them and I’ll kill you a second time.” 

“Understood,” she laughed. “Maybe another time.” She was getting close to the end of her book and besides, civil Adam was freaking her out a little. Where was the curmudgeonly old man she’d grown used to? 

Not that he’d actually cracked a smile yet but he was rolling his eyes far less. 

***

After Adam had gone to bed, Alex got the guitar out and began trying to recall some songs. She was pretty good at Summer of ’69 but that was about the only one she remembered most of. 

She opened his laptop, wondering if she could find any guitar music online. His password box popped up but as soon as she realised he’d password protected it, she had made herself invisible and watched the next time he logged on.  His password was ‘mybeautifuleve’.

She soon found instructions for a couple of Elvis songs she used to play, and Highway to hell, and she saw that Wonderwall was still as popular as ever. 

There were many songs listed that she didn’t know though so after a little playing around, she put the guitar aside and searched for some new songs. She quickly discovered YouTube and spent the rest of the night catching up on 15 years of songs. 

She laid down on the sofa, her arms folded before her and her head resting on them as she let the music wash over her. 

Sometimes, like tonight, she would give anything to be able to sleep. It was such a simple thing, such a human thing, but she couldn’t do it anymore. Lethargy made her fade away but it wasn’t sleep. She’d taken it for granted when she was alive. Now she’d never get to do it again. 

There were a lot of things she’d never do again actually. She’d never taste a beautiful baked cheesecake. She would never get drunk. She would never have sex. She even missed some of the bad sex she’d had; mediocre sex was better than no sex.

She didn’t know what came next, she assumed she would ‘move on’ to somewhere, but she was pretty sure she wouldn’t be eating ice cream and sexing up an angel there either. 

Realising that she was growing maudlin, she collected the next book in the Harry Potter series and took it upstairs so she could read beside Adam. 

She knew he could be grumpy, cantankerous and bad tempered, but she liked being with him anyway. 

***

Adam didn’t even bat an eye when he discovered Alex in his bed the next day, he just got himself ready and headed downstairs while she remained on the bed, reading another one of those children’s books. 

He found her in the library about an hour later, when the doorbell rang and Erin arrived with armfuls of packages. 

“They didn’t all fit in my car,” she told him as she entered. “I’ll have to go back for the rest.” 

Adam looked out of the door. “Your car is tiny. I’ll buy you a new one.”

Erin looked shocked for a moment, then she demurred, saying how it wasn’t necessary. 

“Hi,” Alex smiled at their visitor as she put the packages she was holding down on a large, antique writing desk. 

“Oh, uh, hi.” Erin looked a little nonplussed. 

“This is Alex, my girlfriend,” Adam explained, and Alex only just managed not to drop her jaw on the floor. 

“I didn’t realise,” Erin blushed. “Do you have the same…?”

“No, she’s agoraphobic,” Adam answered. “She hasn’t left this house in over fourteen years.” 

Alex was a little surprised by his subterfuge but she didn’t object to his lies. He needed a reason why she couldn’t do the things for him that Erin did. 

“Oh, wow, I’m sorry. That must be really hard.” 

Alex shrugged. “It’s not ideal but you get used to it.” 

“Right… I’ll get the rest of the boxes from the car.” 

Adam went to help so Alex picked up a letter opener from the desk and began to open the boxes. Some of his purchases were obvious, like a soldering iron and solder but there were many things that she couldn’t identify, not even the things named on the package, but she trusted that Adam had a reason for purchasing a book on Calorimeters. 

With Adam helping, it only took one trip to the car to bring everything else in, then Adam thanked Erin for her help and saw her out. 

“That was unexpected,” Alex remarked as he came back in. 

“She was starting to flirt. I find it’s easier just to shut those things down early on.” He looked over. “You don’t mind, do you?” 

“Even imaginary action is a lot more than I’m getting right now,” she grinned at him. 

Adam helped with the unpacking and since there was far more packaging material than was necessary, once everything was out it didn’t even cover the desk. Adam brought two more tables in from the basement to act as workstations.  “Is that everything?” she asked. 

“No, some things were trickier to get but I paid for expedited shipping on everything, so it should be here soon. Hopefully this is enough to be going on with.” 

“What do you want me to do?” she asked. 

“Just make yourself comfortable for now. All I’ll be doing is seeing if anything here can detect your presence.” 

“Do you mind if I read?” 

“Go for it.”

So she picked up her book and sat on the sofa. 

Adam began with a Geiger counter he’d purchased from Amazon, which detected ionised particles caused by various types of radiation. He waved it over and around her but it gave no indication of registering her presence. Next came spectrometers and radiometers. He donned night goggles and looked for sources of infrared and thermal signatures. 

Things became more complicated after that and he began to tinker, putting his own equipment together, or opening up a detector he’d bought and messing with its inner workings. 

Alex sat patiently, book in hand while he waved various things in her direction. 

Finally he seemed to finish and came to sit beside her. 

“No luck?” she asked, putting her book down. 

“Some luck,” he admitted. 

“Okay, what does that mean?” 

“You’re emitting Cherenkov radiation.”

Alex looked blank. 

“You’re disrupting the electromagnetic fields in the molecules in the air, which then becomes electrically polarized. Cherenkov radiation would also explain why you sometimes seem to have a very slight blue-white glow when you fade away.”

“Look, if you want your accounts done, I’m your girl. Geography, also my thing, and I’ve probably read more books than the average library holds, but I scraped by with a C in Physics and chemistry.”

Adam pressed his lips together. 

“You know how a sonic boom works, right?” he asked.

“Yeah, when something loud travels at the speed of sound, the noise gets… amplified?” 

“Close enough. Cherenkov radiation is similar, it’s caused by a subatomic particle passing through a medium at greater than the speed of light.”

“What medium?” she asked. 

“Well with you, it would be air. I’m not sure what substance will work best in the detector.” 

“Okay, I’ll take your word for it. What happens now?” 

“Our problem is that the amount of radiation you give off is tiny, and I’ll have to detect it through an aluminium roof.”

“So it’s not going to work?” 

“No, it will, it shouldn’t block much radiation, I just need a more powerful sensor and a way to detect direction.”

“Okay,” she nodded. 

“Some of the equipment coming tomorrow will help.”

“Sounds good.”

“I’ve done about all I can for tonight.” 

“I wasn’t planning on standing over you with a whip,” she smiled. “Well, unless you’re into that kind of thing.” 

“I was thinking of taking a walk actually, just locally.”

Her face dropped a fraction before she could cover it with a smile. 

“Well, have fun.” 

“You could come.” He said, turning away and straightening some of the tools on the table. 

Alex was stunned into silence. 

“If you wanted to,” he continued, “You don’t have to.”

“No, I-”

“I thought it might be a good idea to go out before we break into the warehouse, get you used to being outside again.” He turned in her direction but didn’t make eye contact. 

The ‘I'd love to’ died in her throat. 

“Right, of course. I mean, I practically am agoraphobic at this point so it’s probably a good idea, like you say. I don’t want to have a panic attack or anything on the night.”

“No.”

“No,” she agreed. 

“So you’re coming?” he finally looked at her. 

“Looks like it.” 

“I’ll get my coat.” 

He left the room, leaving Alex wondering what the hell had just happened.

***

If Alex had any dreams of smelling the roses, she would have been bitterly disappointed. Not only were roses out of season, she had no sense of smell any longer. 

She’d been incredibly nervous to begin with, expecting to disappear at any moment, even although she knew Adam had one of her bones in his pocket and she stood right next to him. It took about a hundred meters for her to finally relax, then she began to look around her. It was 5am so mostly deserted, but a few people were about; early shift workers, vans and trucks with fresh foods for morning deliveries, and even a jogger. 

“I used to go there with Bobby,” Alex said, pointing to the Murrayfield Stadium.

“I didn’t take you for a sports fan.” 

“I’m not really, but Rugby’s okay sometimes, especially if you’re in the crowd, the atmosphere is electric.” She was smiling at her reminiscence but it soon faded. 

“You must miss him,” Adam noted. 

“I think I’m pretty much over it now.” 

“Really? I thought he was your one true love?” his tone was light and teasing, so she elbowed him playfully. 

“He was the love of my life,” Alex tried to explain. “Still is, I guess, but I knew our relationship was over. I assumed he was still alive and even if he still wanted me there was no way would I tie him to a ghost. I had to get over him because it felt like if I didn’t, then he’d spend his life pining over me, and no one wants that for someone they love.”

“Didn’t it hurt to think he might move on?” 

“Oh, so much,” she agreed. “But real love isn’t selfish and all I really wanted for him, ever, was to be happy. Pining over loss doesn’t make anyone happy, so...” she shrugged. 

“That’s very magnanimous if you.” 

“Maybe,” she giggled. “But if I discovered he’d moved on and got a new girl in a week, I might have been less understanding.” 

Adam even smiled at that. Not that she saw teeth, but his lips definitely curved upwards. 

“How about now that you know he’s dead too?” Adam finally asked. 

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “The thing is, when you vow to leave someone behind for their own good, and you do so for over a decade, you can’t just turn those feelings back on ... Then again, if I ever saw him again, who knows, it might all come flooding back… or he might have found himself a nice angel to bump uglies with.”

He did it again, he actually smiled. 

“What about you,” she turned the tables. “What’s your story.” 

“Oh, that’s long and complicated,” he told her. 

“I’ve got time. I’ve got nothing but time.” 

Adam didn’t reply, so although the curiosity was killing her, she dropped the subject. 

“Hey,” she pointed. “That’s where we used to drink pre-game. It was utter pandemonium on match days, standing room only, everyone pushing and shoving to get to the bar.”

Adam shuddered dramatically. 

“I know, right,” she smiled. “I hate crowds.”

“But you did it anyway?” 

“Because it meant a lot to him, and he meant a lot to me.” 

Adam didn’t reply again and the walk back to his house was mostly silent. Alex didn’t mind, it was wonderful enough just to be out in the world again. 

They parted ways back at the house with Adam choosing to watch an Open University lecture about electrons while Alex studied the warehouse plans, trying to memorise them. 

***

The following night Alex brought Adam’s guitar into the library with her and while Adam tinkered, Alex relearned Stand By Me. 

Tonight’s delivery was smaller but looked like it included more specialist equipment. It also included an aluminium roofing sheet, so Adam could test his sensor through it. 

Adam worked mostly in silence, uttering only the occasional curse. In fact until he stepped closer to her to wave another device over her, Alex almost forgot that he was there.

“You’re quite good,” Adam suddenly spoke up, making her jump. 

“Oh, I um, I practiced playing this a lot.”

“Oh, not your playing, that was mediocre at best, but your voice.” 

She couldn’t help but smile. “That’s the best backhanded compliment I’ve heard in a long while.”

“You know, I heard Ben E King play that live.”

“Really?” she sat forward, eager to hear. “When it was first released? I can just picture you in a smoky little bar, listening to him before he became famous. What was it like?” 

“Sorry to disappoint, but it was London in 2012 but if it helps, the venue was called the Jazz Café.”

“Just my luck, I’m rooming with the only vampire in history who doesn’t have cool stories,” she teased. 

“I have cool stories,” he sounded affronted. “I have a lot of cool stories!” 

“Oh yeah? Tell me one.” 

“I was there when Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein.” 

“Who?” 

“Mary Shelly!” he snapped. “She wrote the book at Lake Geneva.”

“I thought Frankenstein was a movie,” she shrugged. 

“Yes, but the movies are based on the book, written by Mary Shelly at Lord Byron’s villa.”

“Who’s he then?” 

When he looked aghast Alex could hold her mirth in no longer and burst out laughing.

“I'm sorry, but you should have seen your face.” 

Adam visibly relaxed. “So you do know who Mary Shelly was then?” he had to be sure. 

“Of course I do. Frankenstein might have made a monster, but she birthed a new genre of fiction.”

“And Byron?” 

“I hear he was mad, bad and dangerous to know.”

“Thank God. For a moment I thought you were as dumb as you look.” 

Alex’s jaw dropped but she was amused more than offended. “That’s rich coming from the least scary creature of the night that I’ve ever met.”

“I’m the only creature of the night you’ve ever met.” The edges of his  lips were twitching up slightly.  

“Not true, a ghost is a creature of the night, and I’m way scarier than you.” 

“You really believe that?” 

“Yup.” Using his vampire speed he suddenly be stood before her, fangs bared and ready to strike.

Alex would have jumped if she hadn’t been ready for him to try and prove it somehow. 

“What are you going to do, growl me to death?” 

Adam tried his hardest to remain evil and brooding but when she stuck her tongue out at him, he chuckled and turned away, shaking his head at her antics as he returned to his worktable. 

“So, how’s it coming,” she asked, putting the guitar down and following him to the table. She’d been a bit too intimidated to ask much before. 

“Not bad. The unit will be a bit unwieldy but I figure I can house most of it in a backpack or something similar. It will take another night, maybe two, to be sure it’s sensitive enough.”

“The aluminium makes it harder?” 

Adam nodded. 

“Do you think that might affect my bone?” she asked. 

Adam looked up. “How so?”

“Like, by shielding whatever it is about my bones that attaches me to them.” 

“I highly doubt that. Your bones are in the basement here with at least three brick walls between there and outside yet you could leave the house. The crack you showed me where you disappear is probably about 80 feet.”

“You don’t think we should test distance through the metal?” She tried to sound as brave as she could. 

“I don’t think it will affect anything and besides, you hate disappearing.” 

“I know, but chances are that I’ll come back, I always have before, and we have to do it at least once more, right?”

“We do,” he confirmed. “But why are you pushing for a third test?”

“Well, it’s just that you’re going to so much trouble to make sure the break-in is successful and I’d hate to be the reason it fails.”

“If it will set your mind at ease, of course we can do it through the aluminium. If the distance comes out the same as before, there’s no need to do it a third time, we’ll know you aren’t affected.”

“Okay, so shall we do it tonight?” 

“If you want.” 

“I do,” she nodded, but she seemed to be trying to convince herself more than Adam. 

“Okay, well I have a few more hours to do on this, so you should try relaxing.”

She nodded and sat back down. “Do you mind my playing?” 

“No, but I wouldn’t mind a different song, just for a change.” 

She smiled and began playing Hotel California. She didn’t remember all of it but more came back as she kept playing. Once she was happier she began singing again and Adam smiled to himself. Maybe he’d have to get back into writing lyrics. 

***

The breeze rustled the trees as they stood outside, Adam placing Alex’s vertebrae behind the aluminium roofing panel. 

“I miss feeling the wind in my hair,” she said. 

“I’m gathering that you miss a lot of things,” he replied. 

“I don’t miss that snark,” she fired back with a smirk. “Come on, grumpy guts, let’s get this over with!” 

She began walking slowly and Adam fell into step beside her. 

“Grumpy guts, that’s original.” 

“Yes, well I haven’t had a few hundred years to come up with witty comebacks like you have.” 

“Snark just comes naturally to me.” 

“As naturally as breathing- oh wait, you’re dead!”

“Not as dead as you are.” 

“And yet you’re the one who looks like the crypt keeper.” 

Adam couldn’t help it, he was starting to like this woman, which meant he felt bad for putting her through this, which was part of the reason he was trying to distract her with this banter. 

“Your fashions are terribly out of date though. You look like Paris Hilton.”

“I look nothing like her!” She gasped. “But even if I did, better than looking like a reject from the

After School Goth Club. Do you own anything lighter than dark grey?”

“I have a nice dark burgundy shirt.”

“Wow, that’s really…” she stopped walking and raised her arm. “It’s starting.”

“You look normal.” 

“I can feel it.”

Adam looked for the first flag he’d planted, which was about 12 inches in front of them. 

“Maybe you’re not quite far enough.” 

She wasn’t dissolving so she took another two small steps, putting her in line with the flag and sure enough, she began to fade. 

“I’ll see you soon,” she told him, an artificially bright smile on her face. 

“Not if I see you first,” he told her. 

She laughed at his childish reply but at least the final expression on her face was a genuine smile. 


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five 

“You’re back,” Adam said upon awaking to find Alex next to him, lying on her stomach, her ankles crossed and swinging over her bum while she read. 

“Did you miss me?” she asked. 

“Like a hole in the head.” He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hands. 

“Aww, you say the sweetest things!” 

Adam heaved himself out of bed and pulled on the first pair of trousers and a shirt; he didn’t bother with underwear or fastening the shirt. 

He also didn’t bother to tell Alex not to ogle him, his ego rather liked that she enjoyed his view. 

He headed downstairs for his first shot of blood and when he entered the library, Alex was already waiting. 

“So, another scintillating evening of being probed by a vampire,” she teased. 

“From what I hear, it’s better than being probed by aliens,” he fired back as he sat down by his worktable. “Did you study those building plans?” 

“You sure know how to show a girl a good time,” she laughed. “And yes, I have, twice, but I’ll look again before we go.” 

“Erin is bringing the last things I need this evening, so we should be good to go soon.” 

“Sounds good.” Honestly, the idea of burglarising the police was terrifying but she did her best to hide her fears. They were completely irrational, after all, even if she was caught, how exactly did you arrest a ghost?

 “So how long have you owned this place?” she asked. 

“Since it was built. Now about 200 years.” 

“You built this place?” 

“Why do you think the master bedroom and the important reception rooms are all north facing?” 

“I… I never really thought about it.”

“I had little choice.” 

“So how old are you?” 

“Four hundred and seventy one,” he said slowly, as if he felt the weight of each year.

“Wow.” She’d been expecting old, but not that old. “So you were born in… she began counting on her fingers.”

“1545,” he put her out of her misery.

“So have you met Kings and Barons and shit.” 

“Some.” 

“Wait.” She sat forward. “Isn’t that the year the Mary Rose sank?” She

“Possibly.” He sounded bored. 

“I’m pretty sure it was. Do you remember it?” 

“First of all, I’d just been born, viewing ships was a rather low priority.” He shot her a withering look. “Second of all, the Mary Rose was a warship. I have no time for war.” 

“Doesn’t stop war being a reality though.”

“Why are you interested in an old ship?” he asked. 

“I went to see it after it was salvaged,” she explained. “It was a magnificent sight. They still had to spray it with water to prevent the wood shrinking and warping.”

“Do you enjoy history?” 

“Not when I was in school, it was all about remembering names and dates then, but after I left I realised history is really about people and their stories. The names and the dates aren’t really that important, it’s the experiences we should never lose.”

He seemed impressed but didn’t reply. 

“So how long will you be staying here?” she asked. 

“Impossible to say. I don’t mingle much, so if I’m lucky I could get ten, maybe even fifteen years before people start to notice I’m not ageing. If I’m unlucky, sometimes only a few months.”

“What does ‘unlucky’ mean?” 

“I’m a vampire, you figure it out.” 

“You still kill people.” She sounded hurt. 

Adam’s piercing gaze met hers, not at all ashamed of himself. 

“Since the usual avenues to justice are unavailable to you, I presume once we find your murderer, you’ll be asking me to kill for you.”

She hadn’t given an awful lot of thought to what would happen yet. For years she had wanted to see them tried and locked away but Adam wouldn’t move her bones, so even if she somehow got the evidence to the authorities, they would have a very hard time prosecuting on evidence discovered by a ghost (as in, not legally obtained) especially without a body. 

An eye for an eye was probably the only kind of justice she could get. 

“Besides,” he looked away. “I only kill when necessary for survival, which is rare these days. I said unlucky because it’s usually me facing the consequences for someone else’s misdeed.”

The way he said it made her think he had someone specific in  mind and she wanted to ask who, but she didn’t dare. 

“My wife’s sister,” he supplied after a few moments, putting the soldering iron down and looking off into the distance. 

Alex wondered if she was the victim or the perpetrator but she was wary of causing more offence. 

“She’s a 200 year old child,” he supplied. “No physically but…” he sighed. 

“You’re married?” she finally asked, thinking that was a safe question. Instead it earned her a glare but she thought there was something else there, something painful. 

“I was.” The grief in his voice was unmistakable. 

“I’m sorry.” 

It probably was best if she just shut up. Clearly he didn’t like talking about the past and she had no right it press him for information. 

Instead she picked up her book and began to read. 

“I fought in the world wars,” he finally said, and she looked up to see his attention focused on the wires he was stripping at the ends. 

“Oh?” 

“Not officially, of course, it’s hard to sign up for military service when you can’t go out in daylight hours. We did our part though; we travelled at night through Europe, taking out as many Nazi’s and their allies as we found. We didn’t need blood banks for years, during either war.” 

“Didn’t anyone notice the fang marks?” 

“Only an idiot bites these days. If we have to eat from the source we make the incision with a knife.” “That’s smart.”

For some reason, those killings didn’t bother her. In fact, she would be angry to discover that Adam had used bagged blood, since the troops had desperately needed that. But for the most part, the German soldiers on the front line were as just young and innocent as the English.

It was hypocritical of her and maybe she needed to look at that. 

“Contrary to fiction, we're not mindless animals. We can control ourselves just as well as humans do. And don’t even try to pretend human won’t resort to cannibalism in tough times. To us, humans are just a food source, like bacon or chicken is to you, and we never feed off our own kind.” 

“Okay, I get it, I’m sorry. I’m still new to this conversing thing and I’m sorry, but your library isn’t stacked with I Know Why the Caged Vampire Sings. Novels and movies are pretty much my only reference for vampires.  But you’re right, I shouldn’t judge you on that. I’m sorry.”

“You already said that.” He hadn’t looked up but  he had paused briefly in his work. 

“Because it’s true. I didn’t mean to offend you but that doesn’t mean I haven’t.”

“Apology accepted.” 

She smiled, pleased she’d been forgiven, and watched him work for a few minutes. He had a little furrow in his brow from concentrating so hard. 

“So, what are you doing?” she asked. 

“Your signature is weak, so I’m wiring four sensors together, then routing that through a program designed to amplify the signal.” 

“Couldn’t that distort the signal?” 

“Yes.” He looked up, impressed by her observation. “That’s why I keep waving sensors in your general direction, so I can make sure the data is accurate.” 

She put her book down and approached. 

“So how does it work?” 

“It’s a miniaturised ring­imaging detector. The type of radiation you give, electrically charged subatomic particles, will pass through this,” he pointed to a tube. “It’s a refractive medium that allows me to measure for the presence and characteristics of the Cherenkov radiation.”

She almost wished she hadn’t asked. 

“And how can you see the findings?” 

He passed her a tablet that looked rather like a GPS. 

“The blue dot in the centre is the detector, You’re the red dot, right beside it.” 

She moved back a few paces and the dot that was her moved too. She picked up the aluminium roofing sheet and held it before the sensor, and her dot shrank to a quarter of the size. 

“How does it measure distance?” She asked. Direction seemed easy enough, but distance she couldn’t figure out. 

“By the strength of the radiation. See,” he pointed to the screen, which now showed her far further away than she actually was. “I’m just testing to make sure it can detect you through the aluminium, I haven’t calibrated it to detect through that medium yet.” 

“You’re really good at this.” 

“I’ve had a while to practice,” he said, offering her a small smile. 

Now they were friends again, she left it there and decided to practice turning things that she held invisible. 

There was a mirror over the mantelpiece and she picked up a candlestick and watched as she disappeared so that the candlestick appeared to be floating in thin air. If she pulled the sleeve of her cardigan down over part of it, that part became invisible, but her file might be a little too big to fit under her cardigan. She wasn’t sure she could will something she held invisible, but she was going to try. 

After half an hour of frustration she decided to try something smaller and picked up a stray computer chip from the table. Another 20 minutes and she was able to make it invisible. She moved up to a screwdriver. That took more concentration but she managed it. 

Although she was invisible, Adam came straight at her with his sensor in one hand and the tablet computer in his other.

“I take it you’re not visible right now?” 

“Yep,” she replied. 

“Good, move around a bit, let me make sure I can follow your direction.” She moved around the room and he followed her, then she moved out into the hallway and along to the kitchen, and he followed her there. 

“I think it works.” 

“Good.” He nodded. “Go back to whatever it was you were doing.” He turned and walked away in what felt awfully like a dismissal. 

Not that she cared. Nope. Adam was just a means to an end, albeit a very grumpy means. 

Then she picked up a piece of plastic, the broken casing of something Adam had opened to cannibalise the contents. Then she tried her paperback. Finally she picked up the candlestick again but before long, she noticed that strange feeling. 

“Uh, Adam?” She made herself visible so he could see that she was fading. “I’m sorry, didn’t realise this would drain me.” 

He looked irritated and she could understand why, but she had never really tried this properly before, she’d just been playing around, making things float in front of a mirror when her cardigan fell over the album she was waving around. She’d made a few things appear and disappear, then considered a new career as a magician's assistant… as long as there was absolutely no travel involved. 

In her defence, she had been alone for about five years by that point. Her entertainment options were limited. The old house didn’t have a TV, not even a crappy black and white one. 

“I’m sorry, I­” And she was gone. 

Now Adam felt like a bit of a jerk for being irritated but he needed her for testing. Still, she had been so busy placating him that she hadn’t had a chance to say her lucky phrase. 

“I’ll see you soon,” he said for her, hoping she could still hear him. 

He dropped his wires on the desk and with a sigh, he sat heavily in his chair. 

“I think maybe I’ve been alone for too long too, Eve.” He said to the room. “You’d like her. She’s a lot like Ava, only without the selfishness. She’s got a good heart, she’s bright, vivacious… I wish you could meet her.” A small smile played at the edges of his lips. “You should have seen what she did to my guitar. She randomly changed all the strings but I think what most upset me, was that they weren’t even tuned properly.”

He shook his head at her antics. 

“You’d like what she’s done with the place though. If this goes on much longer, I might buy some wallpaper, I’m certain she’ll be compelled to hang it. She’s kept the place spotless, and lord knows it needs a little love.” His smile slowly faded. “And now I’m talking to myself, like a crazy person.” 

He could hear Eve’s reply in his head, as clear as if she was sitting beside him. ‘Maybe you should talk to Alex instead.’

“Oh,” he smiled wryly, “I’m not quite ready for that, my love.”

Eve had been his companion for centuries and he felt like she was a part of him, in many ways. 

‘It’s time to let that part go. Let someone else in,’

“She’s not even a someone, she’s a ghost, and pretty soon she’ll be passing on to wherever dead people go, or poofing out of existence. Hardly a long term friendship.”

‘Life has a way of surprising even one as jaded as you,’  the Eve in his head told him. 

“I’ll believe that when I see it.”

***

In bed that night Adam expected sleep to come easily, as it always did, but he found himself staring at her empty side of the bed. 

He didn’t know when it had become her side, but that was how he thought of it. He had no clue why he couldn’t sleep but it wasn’t until he told the empty room, “I’ll see you soon,” that he relaxed.  Evidently her superstitions were wearing off on him, 

“Goodnight.” 

He closed his eyes and sleep soon claimed him. 

When he next opened them a crack she was beside him, although all he could see was her crossed feet swinging over her bum. 

“Mmm,” he hummed in contentment and closed his eyes again. 

“Morning.” He could hear the smile in her voice but he didn’t bother to reply. “I’m sorry about last night, I hope it didn’t inconvenience you too­”

“Alex?” he grunted.

“Yes?”

“Shut up.” 

She was silent for a beat and he expected her to yell for being so rude. Instead she simply replied with, “Thanks.”

The corners of Adam’s mouth twitched as he turned over. 


End file.
